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Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

nytimes.com

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Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#271

Post by technofiend »

technofiend wrote: post #158
gozur88 wrote: post #98

>"It’s making people less generous and chivalrous,” Ms. Pennoyer said. “It used to be you’d go to a restaurant, and you’d put down your credit cards and split it 50-50, even if one person had steak and one had chicken. But now people pay exactly to the cent." Spoken like the person who always orders steak. I don't drink, so I'm always irritated when I go out to dinner with a bunch of people and someone says "let's ju…

The infamous "unpopular subsidy of Wally's lobster" Dilbert cartoon covers this, although we had a coworker at my last job who took it to the next level. We'd go to lunch and this guy would wait for everyone else to chip in their money (tip included) and then he'd see how much was left, claiming he didn't have change for a $20. But I noticed he was taking enough change back that all the tip money was subsidizing his…

Hopefully it's OK to reply to my own post just to correct it and name the reference as the parent post to my reply is no longer editable - "unpopular subsidy of Wally's salmon" - http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-05-11

Mea culpa on not checking my reference earlier.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#273

Post by toomuchtodo »

swiley wrote: post #186
kentt wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time I hear about it is when people on HN say everyone uses it.

The girls on tinder jokingly ask for it in their profiles.

Why downvoted? I have seen many Tinder profiles with "Send me/Venmo me $5 and see what happens". Scammy but true.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#274

Post by ryanSrich »

rc_kas wrote: post #117
extr wrote: post #77

Young millennial male, every single person I know uses Venmo. IMO this article largely misses the point of the app. It's replaced cash/checks is all, it's not some huge social upheaval in the way we use money that needs to be analyzed. In my experience it's rarely used for splitting bills for dinner or picking up bar tabs (I can't remember the last time I went somewhere that wasn't able to split the bill on their end…

"every single person I know uses Venmo" How does that happen. I don't know a single person who uses Venmo. Not one. I know a lot of people and I work in Tech.

Hm. How old are you? I'm 27 and everyone I know uses Venmo. I'm not even in the valley or the bay.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#275

Post by mherdeg »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #122
mherdeg wrote: post #74

I think a lot of people are totally unaware that Venmo transaction details are public-to-the-world. Fascinating experiment in radical transparency. Also, per NYT: ""More supportively, Noam Waksman, a 24-year-old who works in digital marketing in New York, said he has “been called out by friends before, for charging my girlfriend for a meal,” which they had spotted on Venmo."" This is an interesting dynamic - normally…

You can change the publicity of a transaction to private or friends only.

Oof yeah I should be more precise -- I think the surprise is "public default".

They do make it super easy to find the setting "default audiences for future transactions: private" plus "past transactions: make to private" and I would wildly speculate it is interesting that many people don't think about whether or not they should do that.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#276

Post by kalleboo »

int_19h wrote: post #216
dgacmu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distinctly non-millennial, creaky, grumpy middle aged fart here: venmo (and Google wallet) are great. Paying the babysitter? 10 seconds to find out their venmo username. Check that the picture looks right, send. Much easier than the alternative US bank-based solutions such as popmoney. Much less hassle than keeping cash around.

It's really mostly a US problem, because of how hard wire transfers are to do here, compared to most other countries. All these services are basically wire transfers done right.

And in some other countries the banks aren't incompetent and have simply implemented the same thing themselves. Sweden has free wire transfers that take half a business day but despite this the banks still got together and implemented a free, instant, payment-via-phone-number app https://medium.com/@etiennebr/swish-the-secret-swedish-finte...

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#277

Post by treehau5 »

cakedoggie wrote: post #230
treehau5 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem is even worse when it's not even necessarily income levels that is the problem, but just different values around money & spending. If you have the same income level, but find it outrageous to spend x on y, you just get viewed as a "cheap ass" It's not my fault I don't want to pay 13 dollars+tip for a cocktail when I can make 20 of them at home for the same price.

> It's not my fault I don't want to pay 13 dollars+tip for a cocktail when I can make 20 of them at home for the same price. Oh, certainly not your fault, but you might be better staying at home. Why agree to go out somewhere with your friends if you are just going to drink water?

> Why agree to go out somewhere with your friends if you are just going to drink water?

What do you think I'm an amateur? Club soda with lime, in a highball glass.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#278

Post by rhapsodic »

pacaro wrote: post #252
rhapsodic wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>keep the clutch depressed when you're standing still(wears some bearings I don't remember the name of). It's the throwout bearing. Your father has a point, but I would rather keep the clutch in. Too much thinking involved putting it in neutral every time you stop.

Not putting it in neutral when stopped can contribute to failing your driving test in the U.K.

Aside from reducing wear on the throwout bearing, what is the purpose?

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#279

Post by balladeer »

rjbwork wrote: post #144
rc_kas wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"every single person I know uses Venmo" How does that happen. I don't know a single person who uses Venmo. Not one. I know a lot of people and I work in Tech.

I only know 1, I also work in tech. I, have found developers and other tech workers to be, somewhat ironically, more "Ludditic" than the general population.

It is slightly embarassing (or not) but I started uses WhatsApp (or any IM app) somewhere in early-mid 2016. And the final request came from my sister back in the village. She complained she couldn't add me on WhatsApp.

When I joined everyone was there and I was promptly added to tens of groups which I promptly left one by one.

I have been an Android developer for 6 years now.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#280

Post by kalleboo »

maxxxxx wrote: post #187
bit48 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is this portrayed as a bad thing in the article? It takes some of the humanity out of the time spent together. Being generous with each other is part of how friendships and other relations are formed. Among friends, boiling it down to a precise transaction is petty. If a friend is abusing this approach, that says something about both him and your friendship.

I have had regular dinner with friends who liked to eat and drink a lot. Much more than I do. So I always ended up paying $50 while I myself consumed for maybe $20. Not once did any of the people who ate a lot notice that there were several people on the table who consumed only a fraction of what they consumed. Sharing is fine but I think it needs to be approximately even. You can't have people constantly taking adva…

I have the opposite problem. On the rare occasions I go out to eat, I go out big and drink a lot and eat good. I get that so I always try to pay a bit more but everyone else will be like "oh no, we're just splitting evenly don't worry" and it makes me feel rude.

Luckily around here a lot of places have set menus and are all-you-can-drink including alcohol which simplifies things a lot.

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